May End Up DIY - Office Lighting

[thescullster]

Hi All

The office I usually inhabit has some very old tubed fittings. They are 4' x 2' and fit in place of two suspended ceiling tiles.

I like them because each is a 4 tube fitting and we can remove tubes to get the light levels we want around the office. Also, they have chrome diffusers that avoid the light source being exposed.

Our electrical engineer keeps going on about getting LED flat panels, with each panel sized to replace a 2' square ceiling tile. I have recently be working in an office with these and find them very straining on the eyes. This may be the output of each panel, the light colour or just the fact that the light source is directly visible. As I work in an open plan office there will be probably 8 of these in view when sat at my desk, if I allow the panel option to go ahead.

Does anyone know what the options are here please? The switching is by "rows" of fittings rather than by office area. Switched as they are I don't see dimmers as an option, but could be wrong.

A quick Google doesn't show anything other than the panels as a ready replacement for suspended ceilings.

Any words of wisdom appreciated

Thanks

Phil

[charles]

When I fitted an LED floodlight to our village hall car park there were cp,aints of 'harshness' compared to the old sodium one. A piece of pale lighting gel (which I happened to have) solved the problem.

[ARW]

Why not try LED tubes on a couple of existing fitting and see if you like them?

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

Can you not just fit the led replacements for the tubes directly. That way you could mix and match the colour temperatures to see which one suits. With the panel idea you are stuck with whatever it is for a whole section. Its not always true, as you already suggest, to always have max light. When I was sighted and even when I was losing it, I found large expanses of any lighting tended to look like it was strobing or had waves running across the room in some cases. This never happened with the old filament lighting since the thermal lag tended to even it all out of course. Brian

[thescullster]

Hi Adam

What does it involve fitting LED tubes into existing fittings?

There are all sorts of electrical gizmos, chokes, starters etc. to get the fluorescent tubes to fire. Do these need to be by-passed somehow?

Thanks

Phil

[Andy Burns]

Usually the LED tubes come with a "dummy" starter that needs to replace the original, most LED tubes say the ballast can be left, but equally I think they can be removed, why pay to heat up a lump of iron? If you have HF gear, I presume that would have to be removed?

[ARW]

Very little work is needed.

Wago connectors (or similar) and a wiring diagram is all that is needed to try one out.

Dummy starter might not work depending on the set up if you have 4 lamps and 2 starters.

It's a piece of piss to DIY it and try it.